Saturday, October 7

0815

This morning when I rolled out of the hay and took a peek outside, I couldn't help but feel a little like Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day.” The little critter wouldn't see his shadow if you painted it on the ground for him. The forecast is not great, with more gray and drizzle this morning and possible clearing this afternoon. So grab some coffee - oh wait, it's Saturday, and everyone out there is probably headed for the drop zone. Sigh. Well, check back soon anyway!

1130
The word is that the skies are clear a few miles to the south and the 16-way teams are on “stand by to stand by.” The latest plan is to bang out a couple of rounds of 16-way and then switch to 10-way.

No, these are from last night, not this morning ;-)

Sunshine! Sunshine! We have sunshine! Grab yer socks and pull the chocks we're gonna be skydiving here soon! (Fifteen seconds after I wrote that, Ted turns to me and says, “You got any socks?” not knowing what I'd just written. He's getting on a plane. Twins!)

For those of you who've been waiting for the Knights FX 16-way team photo, it's up now.

Here you go, ladies! The last eligible Wagner is still on the market!

Moving on to round 3 of 16-way, my Deguello friends had a nice 6 pointer, then Airspeed smoked a 10 on it with some really nice 3D moves.

OH my goodness - on Knights FX round 3, one of the Knights spent almost the entire skydive trying to put a loose reserve handle back in the pocket, and they get a 2 on the jump! I HATE it when that happens. I'd hate it more if my team wasn't in 2nd place now! ;-)

So with round 3 in the bag, AZ Blue has a sudden 6 point lead over Deguello. There are four teams within three points of 4th place.

1430
Well, Airspeed Blue knocked the socks off the competition in round 4 with a 14. Knights FX looked like the keystone cops in freefall building the first point and settled for a 6, while Deguello was slow and smooth all the way for a 6 as well. I think they are switching to 10-way speed now.

1530
10-Way! The “original” belly-flying competition is under way. Now there's a horse of a different color!

DOOR JAM!

The teams that aren't doing 10-way are driving on with their 16-way jumps, so we got both going on right now. After an excellent round 1, Chicago STL had a rough 2nd jump, while Airspeed pulled into the lead with a fast 12.04 second jump.

After watching Airspeed's round 3 of 10-way, I'm thinking that they're well on their way to sweeping the 2000 U.S. Nationals of Formation Skydiving. “Power of 10” - Carl Daugherty's team - got a 23.29" on round three, and they're lucky it wasn't a 40; only one of the judges caught the illegal grip that was taken out the door. Let's get it together folks and have a clean finish here! ;-)

1830
10- and 16-way have completed 4 rounds each, and the judges are about to catch up...

OUCH MAJOR RULES VIOLATION Carl's 10-way team is being popped on all their jumps because of illegal contact with the right side of the airplane in the lineup! It's black & white in the rules, you can't touch that part of the door, and there they are doing it on every jump. You know, every year we see a big conflict in the 10-way rules interpretation and judging, and this one is no different. I think I see the beginning of the end for this event at the nationals. It's a real headache for the judges. That's too bad too, because 10-way speed is the original FS event; it would be a shame to see it die, but such is the nature of competition evolution. 

But kudos, with only a little bias because I'm the alternate, for Roger's team. By the book and clean.

Well, that's it for tonight. Let's hope the groundhog sees it's shadow in the morning!